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Work and espresso

So I'm sitting here with a credible, if not great, latté, and thinking about the week ahead.

The interview with the non-profit happened on schedule on Friday. I'd call it less of an interview than a rap session, and that's not a complaint--it was pretty cool. I have an interview with the catalog company tomorrow, which I'm expecting will have all the upsides and downsides I've already mentioned (higher pay but longer commute, profit vs. nonprofit, much less free time vs., uh, higher pay again). There's also a potential contact for typography work.

I have to find a new health insurance provider if I want to stay insured. (You can make up your own rant about the health care system here if you'd like, but it's not really worth the effort, is it?) I still haven't filled out the dba paperwork for Coyote Coast Press, nor have I found a domain hosting service, although I did start work on a basic web site to put up once I have both of those. I should get that all underway by the end of the month, I suppose.

In my ongoing good-coffee-on-the-cheap fascination, I dug out my refurbished Krups espresso maker. I got it many years ago for $80, and if you've seen how much espresso machines cost, you know how cheap that was. Despite it being a "pump" design, I never got it to make good espresso. What I've learned recently made me suspect I had no idea what I was doing.

The first thing to do was to clean it. I won't go into details, but we'll just say that I understand why the espresso I made with it after I had it a couple years was particularly unpleasant.

While I've tried it with my own roast coffee, I'm currently using a tin of Illy pre-ground espresso as a "learning tool." The espresso I'm making now is considerably better, but I'm not getting as much espresso out in a double shot as I should be (in coffeegeek speak, I'm making ristrettos, or "short doubles"). In theory this means I'm tamping too hard--or the pump isn't generating enough pressure. The espresso seems warm rather than hot, which makes me wonder if the machine really does have a problem beyond operator error.

But it did make the credible latté at the start of this entry. I'm finished with it now.

So. "Weekend" is a fluid notion when you're unemployed, but it's a pretty day out and I should be enjoying it. I also should be writing or web designing or doing other "work" things that I have on my plate. And I should be trying to stave off what I fear is an oncoming cold, just in time for next weekend's convention.